Straight Shooter
by Old Emerald Eye
Summary: Honor travels to White Haven to make confession. Or, She doesn't fall into Hamish's arms. Honor/Emily, post Hades. Treecats and Armsmen attending.


**Title: **Straight Shooter

**Pairing:** Honor/Emily Alexander (pre-relationship)

**Summary: **Honor travels to White Haven to make confession. Or, She doesn't fall into Hamish's arms. Treecats and Armsmen attending.

* * *

Following her return to Manticore, and eventual escape from the endless rounds of debriefings that followed, both professional and personal – Elizabeth had managed to combine the two with the acumen Honor had come to expect from her Queen, but others were neither as skilled nor as kind, BuInt being especially exeriousTK in that regard - Honor travels to White Haven to make confession.

She travels alone from Landing, as much as that word can be made to apply to anything involving a chauffeured aircar and an escort of sting ships shadowing her every move from several kilometers overhead. It was an adjustment she had made once, on becoming Steadholder, and one she would have to make again now that Andrew was no longer constrained to stims and the handful of marines that had managed to win his trust on Hell.

She uses the time in transit to try to organise her thoughts into some semblance of coherent order. It's no easy task, despite her best efforts.

Admiral White Haven – the source of her current disquiet and soon to be subject of the afternoon's discussion - had returned to his posting at Trevor's Star weeks before, having ensured her safe arrival on Grayson in her namesake. He'd left early enough to avoid the worst of her reaction to learning exactly what everyone had been up to during her absence, while still lingering long enough to get to witness her reaction. Not an easy balance to achieve, but one mastered as expected of one of Admiral White Haven's talent and decades of experience at delicate manouvres. Captain Henke too had parted ways before her audience with the Queen, returning to her duties in Home Fleet, leaving Honor to marshal her own thoughts without grounding influence.

Her meeting with Lady Emily Alexander involves her aforementioned security detail, albeit distantly, two treecats, and a full afternoon tea in the enclose terrace that for all intents and purposes doubles as greenhouse now that winter was coming to the northern hemisphere of Manitcore. The weather itself had nothing on the winters Honor had grown up with - Sphinx's axial tilt could make for some truly spectacular snowdrifts - but the respite from the wind was more than welcome after she had spent just over two years acclimatising to tropical conditions.

The table beside the chairs they settle at is supplied with a plentiful spread of finger food that manages to combine sating her metabolism while looking as well put together as any meal Mac would have on offer and being accessible to someone with a single arm – in retrospect, that may have nothing to do with Honor's disarmament, but it is appreciated nonetheless - and, a fact which Honor considers an indicator of good taste if not the future gastronomic integrity of her 'cats, a selection of celery dishes.

Once the usual pleasantries are exchanged, and their retinues – a seemingly mismatched army of Lady Emily's attendants and her own guards that are eying each other with utmost politeness and not-quite suspicion, providing great source of entertainment for Nimitz and Samantha – have withdrawn as far as practicably possible to give the four of them some semblance of privacy, Honor gets down to business. After she finishes this scone. It's really quite good. Mistress Thorn will probably want the recipe.

For Andrew, the other side of the door is as far as he is willing to remove himself. In fact, it's further than he usually allows himself to be from her whilst on duty. In deference both to his Steadholders proven lethality and her companions demonstrable lack of threat, he allows himself both out of sight and almost beyond range of hearing. Honor doesn't want to push him overly much, not when she can feel how dedicated he is to his duty despite the all problems she causes him. In the absence of a clear and present threat, he will wait at his post without a word of complaint until her business is done, but she'll know that with every minute that passes he will be imagining creatively plotted assassination attempts. In some ways, Hell had almost been a break from the constant hovering. Even so, she won't draw it out.

"Concerning Admiral Alexander-" Honor takes a sip of the tea to whet her throat. She hates the complications matters of the heart inevitably produce, doubly so if it's not her romantic notions that created the issue in the first place. But she has no choice but to deal with the matter. The last time she had an incident of this sort, it took decades of proving herself and two duels to resolve fully. Ignoring the issue simply will not work.

Besides, Honor is an officer of Her Majesty's and Protector's Navies. She was trained, in the wilderness of Copperwells, the structure of Saganami Island and finally forged in the field of battle to act decisively. She has an opportunity to cut a developing problem off before it grows larger still, and she is too well practiced at the art to let it go attempted.

"You've developed feelings for each other?"

Honor manages to choke, despite having finished successfully swallowing her tea. Words like that, coming from the Admiral's own beloved wife of decades, are enough to catch the throat of any unwary soul. The spluttering thankfully prevents any similar eruptions of a verbal nature, and she has her thoughts firmly marshaled before beginning to speak. The ruin Ransom's goons had left of her face makes not slurring her words hard enough without allowing her emotions running high to add to her troubles.

"I of course hold Admiral Alexander in the highest of regards as an officer -" And his conduct in that area has been exemplary. With the singular exception of a blind spot when it came to proper consideration of the advantages of Hemphill's innovations, but it seemed her telling off had got him out of that particular rut.

_But as a private individual ..._

It seems Lady Emily has no intention of allowing her even that explanation as a shield, feeble as it may be. Sometimes doing the right thing is so very unattractive a concept when compared to hope that pretending it doesn't exist will make the issue disappear.

"So Hamish was the one who caught feelings." Honor wishes she could find something to dispute with that statement, but too much about Admiral White Haven's change of regard towards her – besides the fact that it had, and that the development had not reversed during her captivity, rather increased in fervour from what she had gleaned in transit to Protector Benjamin – is unknown for her to do anything of the sort. Her hand finds Samantha's fur.

"Not surprisingly really." Whatever progress Honor had made calming her face disappeared at the look Lady Alexander directed at her. It wasn't salacious, far from it, but the slight tilt back and the sheer directness of her gaze was as apprising as any inhabitant of Beowulf could only dream of pulling off.

Honor had begun to accept that her painfully prolonged adolescence had finally, over the course of several decades that she'd spent occupied with other more naval affairs, developed into features that might reasonably be considered somewhat attractive, if about as far from her mother's beauty as conceivably possible – Paul and Mike had been instrumental to that slow process – but blatant acknowledgement of the fact that there is something in her form that could be found desirable still leaves her on the backfoot.

Lady Emily's next words banished any warmth her look generated, replacing it with ice.

"He has needs, needs my condition prevents me from fulfilling."

Honor straightens in her seat, awkwardness burning away under indignation at the implied shirking of duty – or was it the lack of honor in a superior that she had admired for years despite the current, personal, issues between them? - and snaps before she can think "Whatever needs he may have can be tended without breach of his oath to you." She exhales and manages to keep a blush off her face by sheer will alone as Emily takes her in, somehow managing to give the impression of leaning back in her chair as she does so.

It's the Grayson in her. It has to be. But the thought that _Emily Alexander_, beloved of the entire Star Kingdom wasn't good enough, by any standard imaginable, was – it was just plain ludicrous.

Rising onto her truelimbs, Samantha pats Honor on the head with a truehand, stretches and slings across into Emily's lap. Lady Alexander strokes her fur as the 'cat curls up and settles, keeping her eyes on Honor throughout the manouver.

Nimitz takes the chance to stretch and resettle across her shoulders, a new stalk of celery clasped in his hand as he does so.

"Thank you for that."

"It's the right thing to do, my lady."

The twitch of something too small to be called a smile catches at the corner of her mouth.

"Please, call me Emily."

Strange as it may seem, this feels like it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

"Then I'm Honor."


End file.
